THE MASS

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Transitional Landscapes

-11[13.4]

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Lyric
Homage
From the Last Century
By

Reverend Stephen Frost Ph.D.
February, 2010

Rewrite: June 2014

 

 

 

After fifteen years- months of each being spent in pilgrimage, (hitchhiking and walking, sleeping out along roads of the earth- no hotels or public transportation for most of it; yes prayer, meditation, rituals…)- by 1985 the form and parts of the Mass became the format of pilgrimage for myself and a few friends- Thus, the form and title of this poem. Like a Raga or Jazz, there is a general form with nearly limitless space inside to improvise- to err…

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It will help the reader to know the poem “Zima Junction” by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, the anti-Soviet Russian poet, especially its chthonic description of a country trip to pick wild strawberries in Siberia. Then, be familiar with the ‘Bakti’ verses of Jalaludin Rumi, some elements in the Hassidim, Alexander the Great’s trip to Siwa, the general benefit of a traditional Liberal Education, frequent attendance at the Divine Liturgies of the Church, its theologies and metaphysical exercises from the Hesychasm, Buddhism, and Shamanism–A touch of Mr. James Joyce, but not too much, then 2 bits from P. Pasolini.

Short of that, you might still enjoy the read!

 

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THE MASS

Homage For Trying

Preamble

“It takes a priest to diagnose a problem; it takes a sorcerer to solve it.”
I Ching, #57.

The ‘Gods’ are symbols of Deity, Angels or Demons issuing from No-thing to work or unwork the Divine Will
Or, Archetypes if you prefer

Moments in the Meeting of Matter and Spirit

Consciousness
Godhead Named
(Here, Bits of Tid)

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Vast
In Silence.

Dark Empty Womb, ‘the Motherly Womb of God the Father.’

Then, if there had been eyes to see…

A blinding flash. Clear to White Light.

Vast

We’ve Begun.

Spirit flashes, Shiva Dances, breaths a breath of comfort

Draws out the plasma, laying the branes, ordering the stars– Indra Thunders.

Kokyanwuti weaves

Our lives in Mercy, Kindness, Compassion—a ‘happy’ drop of poison, threatens

Light, Innocence picking among a desert garden’s twilight trees

Vast

And delight- ‘desert fawns leaping oasis spring’

No word how the desert puma sings

Springs and grass.

Don’t want a divine friend- Bliss? A Superior? When we might be gods ourselves?

Selves… We make our own clothes… Yama, Yamataka.

Horus drives us home. Who told that we were naked? How did we know?

Taraumara cobre

Gold, Frankencense, Myrrh– and Melchizedek

A New Innocence…

Vuoto

 

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Short Glossary For Preamble, et allia:
Plasma-Outer Space. Blinding Flash- Evidence of shamanic activity. Brane-The pane upon which a universe is spread. Indra– Indian storm deity rising to transcendence like the war god, Yahweh. Kokyanwuti– Hopi word for Creator deity, Grandmother Spider. Yama– Indian god of death.Yamataka-Tibetan deity overcoming death. Taraumara– Native Americans who live in Canyon del Cobre, Mexico. Melquizedek– Ancient non-Christian, non-Jewish King from whom Abraham sought  blessing and in whose Order I am a priest. Vuoto– Korean name or word for ‘Emptiness.’ Genaia– From the same root as ‘genius’ or spirit(s)- geni, inspiration or gift. Happy drop of Poison– Felix Culpa. To Err, Erring– to wander aimlessly so the Spirit provides the opportunity to serve- Popular in Medieval Christianity as with Knight Errants and Holy Landers/Pilgrims.

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THE MASS

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Introit

Striding upon the quest, one touches its path in reverence.

Out to the highway, erring- One joins the traveling crowds rubbing, occasionally a shove. Sometimes absorbing great light. A flash within, then its gone.

But even that feeds five thousand. Hungry still. There must be more. One arrives at the temple doors. Warmth and comfort within? It’s my body. Mind and Spirit.

Walk through the doors. Any open, light engorged door… Fields of wild strawberries after too long a winter. Too much mud for roads. Ruts and rises deeper than wheels reach.

Rain on one’s uncovered wagon. A cloud burst, drenching and cold. No matter. The sun will be out soon. Hot and steaming. Breezes cool now- as we turn- the cosmos turns.

And turning we see the bursting red berries, singing to heaven, low to the ground, ripe, easily trampled. We worship the red sweet flesh and thank God for it.

Down there on the ground, sun from behind the cloud, starved from bread and vodka all winter- and cabbage. Out beyond the commune and pastures, We gather in a hymn.
Confiteor and Purification

Who can fill the universe? And whose thousand bushels fill this tiniest seed? A loaf, full of grains, salt and sugar rising- soft then smooth, melting ice clinking in a glass.

Admit it! Cast it out. Whisper it to one anointed- It, instead replace with freedom… Let the angels find you on the Way. Where? To The Holy Land. Place so full of Spirit, where one is well, where one can ‘know oneself-’ One can tell… Omphalus: Holy Lander!

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Kyrie

Staunch the bleeding of a wounded life? Who can move in a billion hearts as many a universe as One? This Grace is yours… Is yours… Is, you’re… Is. I Am-

With you.

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Gloria

Doves in a cage of an upstairs room. Set free to feed in the crepuscular orchard below. But rose instead to greet the first light. The rising sun after the coldest night.

Down below among the flowers and fruit, street people and woes, still the glory in love found where it may-be but not only a dove hiding in the endless, infinite grass.

The body electric. Such that Love tops the periodic chart or comes at the end, but is always. anyway about the yard, ‘neath the jars preserved in finite patience to last forever, our ‘sparks.’ Shining in a jar.

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Opening Prayer

The ‘Name.’ Kind, respectful as a handshake. Sweet love in the morning. Watchful and caring as the Good Parent—love up around the cradle and the cane, clear shadowless light, the same-

for All.

All,

A sacrifice of self, even the Divine Self. Release and begone- The Oracle of the Son. The Advent, the Great Coming, across desert sand, kissed by the rarest of Storms, the promise of birds in flight- A Son of God.

Slaves no longer. Deep, blue, silver black at night- green, moss and riparian beings who sing around deepest, desert coolest pools,

Not slaves, but Friends.

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I. THE WORD

When I first went to a monastery in the high California desert, 1974, I was given a room at the end of the retreat house next to a garden with poplars and cottonwoods. While napping, the door between my room and the garden woke me as it crashed open against the wall inside; Silent presence shimmered with the golden butter leaves of warm autumn poplars.

23 years from then, Mother and I, also a Holy-lander, drove to a sacred place in the Nevada desert at night. Our car moved back and forth there without the benefit of gravity or wheels and we were transported about ten miles without the inbetween. I believe by Holy Seraphim.

Shhhh! Listen… Then when you’ve heard the ‘tiny noise outside the cave,’ after the elements had passed by- refusing to speak, read from the world’s sacred scriptures such that one and many remember a linage of holy insight- Especially if neither nature nor Spirit will speak other wise… with you.

Finish with the Gospel in all its Tantric grandeur.

Pray for a wise priest to release the Genaia in these sacred books that you may believe and be saved.

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Creed:

Believe- that you may Know. Choose an old dispensation. Islam, The Yogas of Enlightenment, The Jesus Way with its Sacramental Vision of Being, The Taoist genius for the Holy Spirit, Animist/Shamanistic Ecstatic Rite of it all… Allow that to inform your day. Put your foot on the Path, the Way, Holy Lander! No turn around. No slippage sliding back, down the sodden earth embankment to the raging flood.

Walking upright, beneath a canopy bejeweled by stars, embraced by an infinite and vaulting Splendor, intimate Care.

Yes, we believe.
Prayer of the Faithful…

No time to feel superior about one semantic over another or even such issues as purity of mind and heart. Here begins the magic. Change through the union of Spirit and the one who prays, intends change… the Magi. MAGUS, SET YOUR WAY ON A HOLY PATH. CATHOLIC, BE ASSUMED IN LOVE. ALL, ALL, ALL, MAKE THE PERTINENT SACRIFICE. Identify our rite’s specific intention. Always for the rectification of the world, otherwise, we only pray for benefits. About to cast our spell, identify our Identity. ‘Look beneath the root of the root of self.’

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II. EUCHARIST

Preface

Et Cum Spiritu Tuo
And with your spirit

Lift up your hearts

Yes!

Thanksgiving along the Pilgrim Way- Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End, the Way along the Way, and for providing such a Place to go… to Be. The great mystery of Creation and Person.

It is right to give thanks and praise, YES.

Communion with one’s Familiar(s), The Holy Spirit and all the others brought ’round… Spark to Flame. Amen- the Union. Dissolve the rebellion. Move lock and stock to the Holy Land and sing a hymn that brings down the Golem, reinstalls creation, transforms the world. And Kingdom come.

First, bigotry be put aside. The unexamined life is not worth wasting the priest’s time. The berdashe and the breeder of every color must be embraced in the Spirit and recognized as proof that humans- not only animals – drawn together for propagation and education but are also beings who must realize some larger tenets about being, existence and non-existence, bio-duality. Peace, Compassion, Kindness, are the good beginning… Metaphysics are necessary to realize a larger embrace than the cold cruelty and wonders of nature- Cycles of pain, of feces, of blood-Species that feed upon one another. An encompassed country where Nature lays the ground until the Clear Light claims it All.

Holy, Power and Might
Heaven and Earth are full of your Glory.
Blessed …is the one who saves the world.

Dominus Vobiscum—

It’s when the demands of dull daily patterns leave me
“an old one in a dry month” that I rebuke this bright passage between two dark holes and can only envision the final fall. But other times, I remember the cover-tossing joy holding you or talking to you, then, I laugh in the morning light hardly able to wait for the next bright dance to come, hardly able to wait for my next chance to fold myself in your arms

Et cum spiritu tuo

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CHRISTOS
Paradigm of yogis, shamans and magi, heart and soul of pastors, guide and person- paradigm of mystic and lay alike. Holy from the Holy.

Let your Spirit come upon our gifts to make them holy, so that they may become for us the Body and Blood (+) of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He took bread and wine, blessing it, offered it in memoria for flesh and blood given for the salvation of the world. The veil is drawn. Time diverted. Singular eternal act. Its form in heaven, its substance our hearts, minds, bodies- The Holy Land.
Come, Holy Lander

Communion

Take this all of you and eat. The veil is drawn.
Take this all of you and drink. The vision is clear.

The cup is taken. Will of the gathering gathered in basket and plate, recast in tone and cadence sung to God and Creation at the highest night of the holist hour

Communion of Spirit and Matter, resolved. Single intent. Our spell is sent.

Let it pierce dimensions and hearts. Let it shift the psyche of Gods, Men, Women and Children- Animal, Plant and Stone- Diamond points of stars and space come for salvation.

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Our Father[1]

 

 

May these gifts bring me to everlasting life.

May I receive them in purity of heart.

May they bring us healing and strength, then

“Be Still and Know that I am God”[2]

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[1] Here we hit a wall!!! Semantics, Language trips on Sociology, Anthropology- the horror of History! How can half the population be subjugated to be inferior? No! But, still, if we wait for the world to be perfect… Be Still- And consider this- This is intended to carry some of the experience of a curious effect of the feminine on the masculine psyche. From The NEPSIS FOUNDATION, SECTION III: EAGLE ROCK:

“When I first visited this place that we later named Eagle Rock, I was with my friend and partner. She is a very beautiful woman and rare for me in that she is one of the few for whom I might have preferred marriage to celibacy. We remain platonic friends. My mother accompanied me on this subsequent visit about to be described. This is an important change of characters for two reasons. One is that my mother, nearly eighty years old, is not so interested in religion or paranormal phenomena. She prefers politics and history. Therefore, she is detached from enthusiasm about religious, psychic and other para-critical phenomena. The second reason is that an archetype showed itself here. The archetype is, I believe, a catalyst for the paranormal seed of this story. The archetype is that of mother and son/goddess and hero. (It amuses me, and others, to think of myself as a hero, but even the least among us have moments of glory. Rather than this being an exercise in self-glorification, I merely point out an archetype that has been glorified in the past. Heracles=”the glory of Hera,” Hero/priest sacrificed in communication with the divine. Jesus and Mary, Theotokos, is another example. This important dynamic, largely ridiculed in modern culture, is essential to creativity, light mysticism and much traditional lore…

…This “old dispensation” includes a Shamanism that reaches out from Paleolithic times into our own because there are people who still live a stone age existence to some degree and because Shamanism is a trans-temporal function of human personality. This old dispensation also includes the priesthood. This topical reference might start with the sacrificial priesthood of the Great Goddess from around the Mediterranean wherein the hero/sacred king/priest/son/consort is adulated for a time, then sacrificed to become divine. His initiates would often eat his flesh and blood in communion with their deity. This function of the mediatory priesthood, hieros or hierophant, extends to the priesthood of Jesus Christ, in the order of mythic “Melquizedek of Old.” These realizations lead to “Memo to a Bishop” that heads up the conclusions to this project. See www.nepsis.com (UCB Site Map) Table of Contents Section III for “Memo” and “Eagle Rock” in the same section, for ‘the story’…

[2] From an ancient Semitic Poem- Arab or Jew, pastoral or urban- I don’t know.  I used this phrase on my Ordination Announcement card.

 

 

 

THE MASS

All Rights Reserved ©2010 By

The Reverend Stephen Frost Ph.D.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher.

NEPSIS ART
www.nepsis.com